Is Google TV Just an Unprotected Desktop Running Chrome 5?
Posted on 10. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News
A lot of hype has gone into the launch of Google TV, with a first glimpse of all sort of whiz-bang features coming during this year’s Google I/O developer conference. In the time since we’ve seen various demos from Google’s managers culminating in the release of a Logitech set top box for $299 and a $1899 Sony HDTV on DISH Network to start things off.
But what is Google TV other than a desktop computer? When the Logitech Revue box hit the FCC, the mobile computing blog Lilliputing remarked on how closely the internal components resembled that of a nettop, which is a basically a small form factor mobile desktop. Let’s see: Intel Atom processor, extra USB ports and 4GB of RAM. All that’s missing here is some Windows action.
And that’s the difference. In Lance Ulanoff’s PCMag piece “Google TV’s Dark Side“; he expresses his concern about possible threats attacking the Google TV box, causing a user unconscionable havoc.
That would be fine and good, except for the fact that Google TV runs Android with Chrome browser on top. Now, I’m not saying that Android viruses might not become a problem in the future, but it’s hard to see it being an issue at all on this box right now.
Is there some concern about malware from a malicious site attacking Google TV? Sure. There’s always that threat, but not any more so than someone using an Android phone. I fail to understand how Ulanoff sees Google TV as a desktop, since even though I will admit that its hardware specifications are somewhat like a PC, the software running on top is vastly different.
The problem in the past has been Microsoft-based software, not this anything on this new platform that hasn’t even been put through its paces yet.
Whenever I come upon a possibly malicious site, Chrome lets me know with a very obtrusive warning before I can proceed. I’m sure this feature is also a part of Google TV. Also, Chrome auto-updates, which means when there is a massive and critical threat, a Google TV user would be updated and thus protected.
Are there potential negatives to Google TV? Sure. But this isn’t one of them, since it’s a scenario that isn’t even real right now.
